


Dear Mother

by KiiKitsune



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: One-Sided Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 16:03:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/480313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiiKitsune/pseuds/KiiKitsune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has a list of important things. He’s had it since his mom died.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dear Mother

**Author's Note:**

> Written because my head cannon is that Stiles is a borderline sociopath, only really caring about the lives of the people he loves, and then 2x11’s reveal of Stiles’ hypervigilance just fit perfectly into that.  
> Also inspired by this Richard Siken quote:  
>  **Dear Forgiveness, you know that recently  
>  we have had our difficulties and there are many things  
> I want to ask you.  
> I tried that one time, high school, second lunch, and then again,  
> years later, in the chlorinated pool.  
> I am still talking to you about help. I still do not have  
> these luxuries. **

Stiles meets Lydia and it’s a love made in heaven. Not a match. They aren’t meant to be together because Stiles likes her too much for a fleeting relationship. Relationships don’t lasts forever and he knows that more than most eight year olds because moms are always supposed to be there and his isn’t. Love does though, because even though she’s gone his dad still wears the ring.

But Lydia is pretty and smart, and he thinks it’s odd that people forget the later in the face of the former, but he’s happy holding onto that. It’s their secret. Lydia might not know about it but he’ll keep it close to his heart anyways, the same way he keeps her there. 

He likes to pretend he knows her because of that. Because he knows how tall she is and the exact shade of her hair. 

He doesn’t know her.

If he did, he wouldn’t have to wonder if she smelled like strawberries or fire. He imagines both, when it suits her. Or him.

\--

The lilies wilt on his mother’s grave; they’re cut down, run over by a lawnmower when the Lahey’s clean up the graveyard. Stiles brings her daffodils and tells her about Lydia. He tells her that Lydia is good at hiding, so Stiles will become good at seeking. She’ll never know she’s been found but Stiles won’t lose her either. 

\--

Stiles loses her. 

He loses her to Jackson, and he won’t hate Jackson for it because it was her choice too. He has other reasons to hate Jackson anyways.

A part of him still wants to let her know he exists, he cares, that he loves her more. It’s not a lie, but sometimes the truth hurts people more. 

So he doesn’t tell her. He recedes back into the shadows of his own life and watches from afar as the years tick by. They’re in high school now. Things have changed. 

His best friend is the kind of monster that hides under your bed and now Stiles is losing him to. Scott is pulled away by Allison and powers Stiles can wrap his head but not his hands around. 

Everything is more dangerous, but Stiles actually feels better for it. Now there’s something physical to be afraid of. His worrying has a purpose and there’s something to fight besides his dad’s clogging arteries. 

It makes things worse to, because suddenly his fears are real. He can’t tell himself they’re meaningless when someone he loves could be slaughtered just as easily as he could turn around. Away.

He lost someone to death once, and he won’t do it again, even if it means he looks like he went ten rounds with The Sandman just to keep himself awake. 

\--

Lydia gives him a chance and winds up half dead. She’s looking for Jackson but the only reason she’s there at all is Stiles, and doesn’t that just make the joke on him?

After that he knows it’s a lost cause. Even when she wakes up -and she will, she _will_ \- the love that never bloomed will die as a bud. A flower can’t grow with water alone. It needs sunlight, or eventually it’ll just drown. 

But Stiles can pretend, because he still likes Lydia. He doesn’t want her to slip away, even if the meaning of holding on has changed. And he wonders if that’s better. If he can hold on tighter when love, that kind of love, isn’t part of the equation.

It didn’t save his mother, but one case doesn’t make a pattern. 

So far Scott and his dad are points in favour of the plan working, but Stiles can’t just wait around to be proven wrong.

He pops pills like Pez. He isn’t addicted. He can stop. They just calm him down. Make him focus on what’s important. 

There’s not a lot that’s important. There’s Lydia and Scott and his dad. The list is short, and it might seem like there should be more on it but there really isn’t. Everything else just stems from that.

Because Stiles doesn’t care about werewolves, except that Scott is one. He doesn’t care about Peter, except that he’s a threat to them all. He doesn’t care about Jackson, or Danny or anyone else at school, except that they matter to the people on his list. 

The world could burn and Stiles would let it so long as they were happy.

Stiles wonders if his mom would be alright with that. It kills him a little that he just doesn’t know.

\--

Stiles meets Derek and he hates him, because Derek will hurt what he loves. If Scott is the monster under the bed, then Derek is the one over it; looming and ready to bite.

That isn’t true, not really, but Stiles learns that later.

He learns that Derek loved too much and it burned his family alive. Now he hurts too much to make a new one. He’s weak and incapable, just as much as he is big and clawed and scary.

Derek is good at hiding, but Lydia did it better.

Stiles knows he beats both of them, because no one’s figured him out yet.

Maybe being a winner amongst cowards shouldn’t be a source of pride, but Stiles will take what he can get. 

\--

Derek doesn’t trust him. Derek doesn’t trust anyone. He’s desperately crawling, dragging himself across the coals, just to not be alone, and it’ll only ever be a tragedy because he’s forgotten something so fundamental. Stiles would weep for him if he hadn’t used up his tears on drowning love.

They’re drowning together, and he wonders if that means they’re love. 

It just might, because he might not cry for Derek but he wants to prove him wrong. Wants Derek to have someone to trust, and it isn’t because Derek can protect him or Scott or Lydia or his dad. 

He lets Derek sink just so he can be the one to pull him back to the surface.

Is that cheating? Is it winning if you rig the game?

Is trusting a liar the same as being lied to?

He thinks maybe his mom would hate him for it, for manipulating someone like that. Stiles isn’t sure he cares anymore, but he won’t admit it. He doesn’t want to stop asking her for advice. He likes it best when there’s no reply, because he can just make up his own.

\--

He still doesn’t know if Lydia is strawberries or fire or something else entirely. 

Derek just smells like ashes.


End file.
